1. Disconnect. Power down your computer–or if you absolutely need the thing for some reason related to your practice and studies, sever it from the internet by disabling wireless.

2. Banish Television. According to Nielsen, the average American watches thirty-four hours of television per week (figures in your country are likely similar). Thirty-four hours of television! You know how much time top-shelf violinists spend practicing each week? About twenty-seven hours.

Laurel Trainor, director of the Institute for Music and the Mind at McMaster University in West Hamilton, Ontario says even a year or two of music training leads to enhanced levels of memory and attention when measured by the same type of tests that monitor electrical and magnetic impulses in the brain. We therefore hypothesize that musical training (but not necessarily passive listening to music) affects attention and memory, which provides a mechanism whereby musical training might lead to better learning across a number of domains,” Trainor said. Merely listening passively to music to Mozart — or any other composer — does not produce the same changes in attention and memory. http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2009/11/06/music-lessons-boost-brain-power#ixzz1ME1MyC5Y